The phenomenon of extraterritorial jurisdiction, or the exercise of legal power beyond territorial borders, presents lawyers, courts, and scholars with analytical onions comprising layers of national and international legal issues; as each layer peels away, more issues are revealed. U.S. courts, including the Supreme Court, have increasingly been wrestling this conceptual and doctrinal Hydra. Any legal analysis of extraterritorial jurisdiction leans heavily on the answers to two key definitional questions: What do we mean by “extraterritorial”? And, what do we mean by “jurisdiction”? Because the answer to the first question is often conditional on the answer to the second, the questions are probably better addressed in reverse order, that is: What type of “jurisdiction” is at issue? And, is its exercise “extraterritorial”?

This Article aims to supply legal thinkers, practitioners, and decision-makers with tools to go about answering these increasingly prevalent and multi-layered questions of U.S. law — the answers to which hold potentially massive consequences for a rapidly and diversely growing number of cases and fields, from corporate and securities law, to human rights, to anti-drug trafficking and terrorism. The Article addresses major issues of constitutional law, statutory construction (including the Supreme Court’s most recent decisions in Morrison v. National Australia Bank and Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum), and common law choice-of-law methodology.

The proliferating phenomenon of extraterritoriality across diverse fields has thus far resisted trans-substantive and systematic analysis. Yet the legal and practical stakes of resolving a mounting array of extraterritorial jurisdiction issues have never been higher. This Article seeks to approach extraterritoriality as a fundamentally singular phenomenon with myriad doctrinal manifestations instead of a scattershot smattering of discrete legal issues in isolated areas. My principal aim in doing so is to help legal thinkers and decision makers not only to resolve extraterritoriality issues but also to comprehend how their resolutions fit within a larger jurisprudence on increasingly important questions of when and how the United States may exercise legal power beyond U.S. borders.

Before a court of a Member State of enforcement, a debtor lodges an application opposing enforcement of a maintenance decision given by a court of another Member State. The court of the Member State of enforcement asks the Court of… Read more…

Prof. Fabrizio Marrella (“Cà Foscari” University of Venice) has recently published the second edition of his textbook on international business law: “Manuale di diritto del commercio internazionale” (CEDAM, 2020), with a foreword of Prof. Andrea Giardina. A presentation has been kindly… Read more…

The Future of the Law of Contract brings together an impressive collection of essays on contract law. Taking a comparative approach, the aim of the book is to address how the law of contract will develop over the next 25 years,… Read more…

On 10–11 October 2019, the Albert-Ludwig-University of Freiburg (Germany) hosted the final conference of the German branch in the framework of the research project “Informed Choices in Cross-Border Enforcement” (IC2BE). Funded by the Justice Program (2014-2020) of the European Commission,… Read more…

The American Association of Private International Law (ASADIP) has postponed its annual conference to a later date in 2021, given the current pandemic. The 2021 conference is entitled “Private International Law and Modern Technologies” and will be held on 4-5… Read more…

The Pax Moot went totally online this year (OK, no surprises there). The case concerns an employment dispute and environmental damage due to mining in an unidentified African country (see the paxmoot website). It raises various issues of jurisdiction, applicable… Read more…

The Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg is starting a new virtual workshop series in private international law. The first speaker, Matthias Lehmann from Bonn University, will present (in German) on Tuesday, June 2, at… Read more…

This book provides an unprecedented analysis on the place of performance. The central theme is that the place of performance is of considerable significance as a connecting factor in international commercial contracts. This book challenges and questions the approach of… Read more…

On 2 July 2019, the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) adopted the 2019 Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters (2019 HCCH Judgments Convention). The instrument has already been described… Read more…

A French Décret, allows, for the time of the state of emergency, notarization by a French notary without a need for parties to be physically present. Explanation and analysis is here and (briefly) here. Importantly, the possibility is also open… Read more…